It Happened One Night

by Lisa Dale

  Lana nodded and rubbed at her temples with both hands. She felt as if her brain didn’t have the capacity to hold the hugeness of her worry about the baby and the mire of her anxiety about Calvert’s return. Her nerve was failing. Maybe now wasn’t the right time.

  The pregnancy had made her incapable of making decisions, of taking action. She was certain that she wanted to give the baby up for adoption, but she wasn’t the only person involved in the decision. She’d yet to decide how hard she should work to get in touch with Ron. The man had abandoned her—she wasn’t so naive as to think that he would be pleased to learn about his child. Also, some part of her felt guilty about getting pregnant, as if she’d got pregnant alone—and so she alone deserved whatever hardship the pregnancy entailed.

  The other part of her wanted to stomp her feet, point her finger, and scream, “You did this!” And yet, she knew she and Ron were equally to blame.

  Last night she’d dreamed that her feet were sprouting roots, and that if she didn’t keep running, the roots would take hold in the earth and she would never move again. She remembered an old myth from her college Flowers and Fiction class, about how Apollo was chasing a woman because he wanted to have sex with her—rape her—and one of the other gods had taken pity on the girl and turned her into a tree. And yet Lana had always wondered who had actually been punished in the story: Apollo, who was left with the freedom to roam the earth and slake his lust with other women? Or the girl, fastened to that one spot of dirt for all time?

  If only… if only she could talk to someone about how she was feeling. The one time in her life she wanted to open up about something important… and Karin was a basket case, and Eli… Eli was off-limits. She couldn’t go to him. She couldn’t give in to that need. He deserved a chance at happiness. And that meant she had to stay out of the way.

  But still, she wondered if he’d realized that she’d stopped calling. If he thought of her.

  No—that was stupid to consider. Lana had forfeited her claim on his heart many years ago. She had no right to expect anything from him now.

  The doorbell rang. She and Karin looked up from their catalogs like mirror images.

  “Ron?” Karin speculated.

  Lana’s heart bottomed out. “I don’t think so. I’ll be right back.”

  She rubbed the back of her neck as she walked through the living room, past the couch with its beaded throw pillows, past the shelves with little figurines from all over the world. If it was Ron, she would deal with him head-on. She could handle his reaction, whatever it might be. She gathered up her courage and opened the door.

  “Hi,” Eli said.

  The breath went out of her. Eli. She gripped the doorknob tight, but it was no substitute for what she wanted to do. Tonight he wore trim khaki pants and a green-striped polo shirt. His hair was between cuts, and he’d done something to make it sort of spiky and messy. Through his glasses, his eyes were the same dark-rimmed brown that so often haunted her dreams.

  “Hi,” she said, not trusting herself to say more.

  “Lana.”

  She heard a door slam and saw that Kelly had gotten out of the car that was idling near the curb. She was wearing fat heels and a fluffy black skirt. She came around to the passenger side, waved, and leaned against the window. Lana got the message: They were being watched.

  “Where have you been?” he asked.

  She tried to smile. “Around.”

  “I left you two messages.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Just… stuff.”

  He shook his head, a sardonic smile tugging the corner of his mouth. “That’s what I thought you’d say. Anyway, I can’t talk to you now. But I wanted to tell you something. You’re not going to like it.”

  She didn’t move. “Okay?”

  “I saw Calvert here this afternoon when I drove by. He was on the porch ringing the doorbell. I guess you weren’t home.”

  Lana began to tremble. “Are you sure? Couldn’t it have been someone else?”

  “Lana. Come on. It was him.”

  She leaned hard against the doorjamb. Calvert had been here. On her property. At her house. The place where she was supposed to feel safe. She turned and pressed her forehead into the wood of the doorframe, as if that were any substitute for leaning all the heaviness inside her against a man she could not touch.

  “I came by,” Eli said, his voice caustic, “because I wanted to tell you in person. I know stuff like that upsets you.”

  She nodded, not quite sure how to respond. She wanted to invite him in. But Kelly was at the foot of the front yard, glaring. Lana had to keep her distance. She’d brought this on herself.

  “Is there anything else?” she asked, as lightly as she could.

  He looked at her for a long, long moment. There was something new in his gaze, something angrier and more heated than she’d ever seen before. And she felt a strange and unexpected echo of it in herself, a dark ember coming to life deep within.

  “No,” he said. “There’s nothing else.”

  Then he crossed the yard in what seemed a matter of seconds, and Kelly was there waiting for him, to raise herself up on tiptoe, to touch his face with her hands, and to receive his kiss with a kind of operatic intensity that would have been funny if it didn’t hurt so bad to see. Lana didn’t watch the kiss’s ending, whether it was a slow unraveling or a breathless full stop. She closed the door. But what she didn’t see was already burned into her imagination, trailing her as she made her way back to the kitchen to share with her sister their mutual bad news.

  July 12

  By the next morning, Karin had made a decision. She wasn’t going to let a fear of bumping into Calvert drive her or Lana to paranoia. She couldn’t have him lurking around her sister’s house. And she was tired of feeling like she was becoming a smaller and smaller person, one who worried only about her ovaries, her father, and her sister, but did little else. She used to have a life. She used to have fun. Maybe Gene was right to suggest she was obsessing. It was time to take a more proactive approach.

  Karin had put Meggie in charge of the store for the morning. Then she picked up Lana from her house so they could run errands together. They were only a block away before Karin divulged their alternate destination.

  Lana turned pale at the news. “Take me back.”

  “There’s no going back,” Karin said. “That’s why we have to do this. That’s why we have to get him out of here.”

  Karin looked at her sister, her long neck gently bent and her eyelids drooping so low Karin thought they might be closed. Karin wished there were some way to spare her sister this ordeal. She’d been just a child when Ellen died, so young and hopeful. She’d believed they would get to Wisconsin, fresh from their mother’s funeral, and be welcomed into Calvert’s home and his heart. It hadn’t taken more than two seconds for Karin to realize that Calvert didn’t want them. And for the most part, she gave up on him quickly, focusing all her energies on being there for her sister.

  But Lana hadn’t been able to cut Calvert immediately out of her heart. The more Calvert ignored her, the more Lana struggled for his attention. “Daddy, do you think I’m pretty? Do you want to hear me sing? Am I your favorite youngest daughter?” Lana flirted and preened and pranced before her father, and Karin’s heart broke.

  Eventually Lana began to understand that her efforts were useless. Calvert barely acknowledged her, except to tell her to go outside, to go to her room, to just go away. As a result Lana had transferred all her bright-eyed affection to the boarders—the itinerant and lonely-eyed men who let her amuse them for a few days or weeks before they moved on. Once she got into the rhythms of their comings and goings, once she learned to accept that they would go, she stopped being let down when they did.

  Karin sighed, hating herself momentarily for dragging Lana along with her. What if she’d acted more out of her own need for Lana’s support than out of her wish to get the
ir lives back to normal? She wanted to keep Lana out of it, she really did. But sitting at home and cowering while Calvert prowled the streets was out of the question. Neither one of them could rest until they knew what he wanted.

  “I don’t see why we can’t just leave him alone,” Lana said. “He’ll go away if we ignore him long enough.”

  “Do you want him to just show up at your house again when you least expect it?”

  “No. But I don’t want to do this.”

  “Neither do I,” Karin said gently.

  Lana looked at her for a long minute. “Okay,” she said at last. “You’re right. I’ll do what I can.”

  Karin parked the minivan in front of the Madison and got out. As they walked down the weedy and crooked path to the front door, Karin had to slow her pace to keep Lana by her side. It felt too much like the old days, when they’d walked home together from school. The walks were nice, a time of possibility and a glimpse of freedom, but at the end of their walk, the wide, flat face of the boardinghouse was always the same: not pleased to see them—just resigned that they were there.

  The gray paint on the door was chipped and peeling. Karin knocked, but no reply came.

  “Let’s just go,” Lana said.

  “Wait.” She banged her fist hard against the wooden slats. Paint crackled and fell. Finally the door swung open, and Calvert was there, slouching and rubbing his eye.

  “Hello, girls.”

  He was wearing faded jeans that were just a little too baggy and a T-shirt that read “Glendale, 1985.” It shocked Karin to see him again. Lana had mentioned that he looked tired. But the circles under his eyes suggested the kind of exhaustion that no amount of sleep could fix.

  “Well, come on in.”

  The common area of the boardinghouse was dusty and dark, with low ceilings and a big, boxy television on a card table in the corner. Cup circles the exact white of bird poop were splattered across the scratched-up wood of the coffee table. Calvert gestured for them to sit on the faded and dusty red couch cushions, but they remained on their feet.

  “Nice to see you both,” he said. “I was hoping you’d come find me.”

  Karin squared her shoulders. “We want to know why you’re here.”

  “Why I’m here…” His voice was like truck tires on gravel. He sat down slowly in a worn brown armchair. “It’s been a long time.”

  Karin crossed her arms. “Tell us why you came here.”

  “I told you, my house got taken away,” Calvert said, looking at Lana. “I got nowhere else to go.”

  Karin redirected his attention back to her. “When will you leave?”

  “We’re all leaving one day or another.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “When am I leaving Vermont? Don’t know. Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On how long it takes me to figure out why I came here in the first place.”

  Karin looked at Lana now, willing her sister to speak. Calvert always had a way of backing Karin into a corner, making her doubt herself. Part of the trouble with him was that he’d always been exceptionally smart. Not that he was formally educated—he hadn’t graduated from high school. But there was a glint in his eyes that hinted he was always two steps ahead of the game.

  “We want you to leave,” Karin said.

  “We? As in, both of you?”

  Karin looked at her sister. In the dim light, she seemed almost otherworldly, haunted.

  “If you have no reason to stay,” Lana said, “then why should you?”

  He sucked briefly at his front teeth. “I thought maybe I’d like to see you.”

  Karin snorted. “We’re not giving you any money.”

  “I don’t want money.”

  “And we’re not going to just turn into your adoring daughters, or something.”

  “That’s fine. I ain’t asking.”

  Karin sighed. “This is a waste of time. Lana, let’s go.”

  Lana followed her dutifully toward the front door, and Karin could almost taste the fresh air on her tongue. This errand had been pointless. She wanted out, now.

  “Wait.” Lana stopped in her tracks. The force of the word shot through the musty darkness, and she turned to face their father. “Are you sick?”

  Karin rolled her eyes.

  Calvert hesitated as if weighing what to say. “Nah. I’m not sick.”

  Lana nodded. Then she glided past Karin and out the front door, passing through the dusty old building like a ghost of herself. She had never been much help in the trenches where their father was concerned. Karin turned back toward him again. “One more thing.”

  He put his hands in his pockets and seemed to shrink ever so slightly, as if he’d already conceded that Karin would have the last word.

  “Yeah?”

  The sorrow in his voice almost made her hesitate. But she didn’t buy the act. “Stay away from me and stay away from Lana. You got it? I don’t want to hear you’ve been hanging around her house again. If I see you, I swear I’ll call the cops.”

  She slammed the door behind her when she left.

  July 18

  Kelly’s cheeks were tinged russet by an afternoon on the water. She stood before Eli in a baseball hat, bathing suit, and life jacket. When she hugged him, she smelled of the lake, the faint sweetness of seaweed and the coolness of water. Normally Eli associated these particular smells with Lana.

  “We won!” she exclaimed, giving him a high five. “Did you see me out there? I was like a machine!”

  “I had no doubt.”

  She smiled. Behind her the hard slate blue of the lake was muted by an overcast sky. The Adirondacks were hazy and dull, but the mood on the beach was upbeat. Blue and white tents had been set up near the water, and teams of women in pink, purple, and yellow were congratulating one another and laughing. In the water, forty-foot-long canoes were lined up and bobbing gently. On the front of each was the head of a dragon. The sides were painted with scales.

  Eli had heard of the Dragon Boat Festival on Lake Champlain—everyone in Burlington had. But he’d never been to watch before. Kelly had invited him to come and cheer for her and the other participants as they raised money for a breast cancer charity. Eli had put on his sandals and grabbed his binoculars, but in truth, even though he was present, he wasn’t fully there.

  After he’d given Lana the message about Calvert, he’d stopped trying to talk to her. Maybe he’d hoped that she would notice his absence and come after him. Maybe he wanted to make her as miserable as she’d made him. Whatever his conscious or subconscious ambitions, nothing had happened. Lana had stopped calling him and he’d stopping calling her. He still didn’t know exactly why.

  Only once before had he ever felt so distant from her. After they’d made love in the field that night, he’d walked her back to her dorm. He couldn’t stop touching her, holding her hand, wrapping his arm around her waist, pulling her close to press his nose to her hair. Sometimes he wished he could go back to that moment ages ago and put his foot down. All or nothing, he would say. And if she said nothing, at least he wouldn’t be caught in this terrible limbo that became more painful by the day.

  Since he couldn’t go back, all he could do was live in the moment and try to stop thinking so hard about his best friend.

  Kelly smacked his arm. “So does it bother you that I’m a dragon boat champion and can kick your butt?”

  He laughed. “Kick my butt? Right.” He picked her up and carried her kicking and laughing to the edge of the lake.

  “Don’t you dare!”

  He waded into the water in his khaki shorts, threatening to toss her. She kicked her feet in the air and squealed. Her wiggling was no match for him and he laughed.

  Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lana. She was standing in the crowd on the shore, her bare feet sticking out from under a long lavender dress.

  Lana.

  He set Kelly back on her feet—perhaps a little too quickly.
He’d started to say Lana! when the woman’s blonde hair caught the wind. He was going crazy. Absolutely nuts. He bent to pull his wet cotton shorts from his thighs.

  “It’s not her,” Kelly said. “What’s going on here? What are you not telling me?”

  He straightened, and as he did, the truth tumbled out. “Lana’s pregnant,” he said. And the moment the words slipped from his lips, he realized how much better he felt to have said them aloud.

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” she asked, her voice tight.

  “I don’t know. She only told me about three weeks ago.”

  “Three weeks!” Her face dropped as if he’d slapped her; he couldn’t imagine why. And then she was trudging past him, white flares of water frothing at her knees as she marched toward the shore. It took a moment before he understood what had happened, and he hurried to catch up.

  “It’s not mine!” he said. “Kelly, stop.”

  “Just leave me alone!”

  Eli caught her arm, but she shook him off. He hurried to stand in front of her, and she stopped. “Did you hear me? It’s not mine.”

  “Wait. What?”

  “I’m not the father. It’s some guy Lana met. Some mountain biker. She doesn’t even know his last name. That’s why I’m worried. That’s why when I thought I saw her on the beach—”

  “The baby’s not yours?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, Eli.” She hugged him close, buried her face in his chest. She squeezed him so tightly he couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t the reaction he’d expected.

  The sun was starting to set now, the first warm effusion of yellow light rising over the tops of the Adirondacks. The seagulls were wheeling in the air, scavenging bits of hot dog and fries from the race. People were walking, soggy and happy, to their cars to go home.

  “I don’t know why you and Lana aren’t a couple,” Kelly said, her forehead resting on his sternum. “But whatever the reason, I’m glad.”

  Eli didn’t know what to say. The conversation had already gotten a little too deep. It was entirely his fault, but he didn’t want to encourage anything more. “Why is that?”